U-shaped Valleys And Their Features - Glaciated Upland Landscapes

In this guide

1. Revise
2. Test

Pages

1. Landscape types
2. The formation of glaciated upland features
3. Arêtes and pyramidal peaks
4. U-shaped valleys and their features
5. Features of a glacial landscape
6. Landscapes of glacial erosion
7. Case study - the Lake District
8. Land use conflicts and solutions

U-shaped valleys and their features

U-shaped valleys

Glaciers cut distinctive U-shaped valleys, or troughs, with a flat floor and steep sides. The glacier uses the processes of plucking and abrasion to widen, steepen, deepen and smooth 'V'-shaped river valleys into a 'U' shape.

The interlocking spurs in the narrow V-shaped river valley are cut-off by the ice, creating truncated spurs. After glaciation, a misfit stream/river or ribbon lake can sometimes occupy the floor of the U-shaped valley.

Valley floor landforms

Ribbon lakes and misfit streams/rivers

A ribbon lake is a large, narrow lake occupying a U-shaped valley. It forms in a hollow where a glacier has more deeply eroded less resistant rock or it may fill up a valley behind a wall of moraine across the valley.

Misfit streams/rivers meander through the flat, wide U-shaped floor. They have not eroded the valley, as they formed there after glaciation had carved out the much larger U-shaped valley.

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